Ghoultown is best described as 'spaghetti western horror metal' and it's damned good. The music captures the mood of the songs' stories perfectly. It is melodius and haunting, and the band blends it seamlessly into pure hardcore metal. But as usual for me, it's the vocals that bring it all home, and these vocals are hauntingly delivered by frontman Count Lyle. Icing on the album cover is artwork by one of my favorites, Dan Brereton, creator of the Nocturnals.
I'm looking forward to purchasing another of their albums.
Alestorm is, plain and simply, pirate metal. Fun, frolicking party music. It thrashes hard and fast as only true European metal can, and dragging you along as the band jigs and reels its way across the seas and stops only for carousing in pirate-friendly taverns. The art work here is good too. The band has released a second album, so I might check it out too.
I don't like Alestorm as much as I do Ghoultown, but it's not fair to judge them against one another. Yes, they're both metal, but one is pirates and the other is Old West horror. See? Not the same thing at all. I have to say the reason I like Ghoultown more that Alestorm has as much to do with the fact that I like westerns and undead more than I like pirates, as much as it does with differences in musical styles.
Both bands capture their genres perfectly in their music. If pirates put together a metal band, they'd sound like Alestorm, only not quite as good. And ditto for gunslingers fighting undead in Sergio Leone's Old West.
Finally, in a completely different mood, I picked up my favorite songs by Dave Dudley. Good, old truck driving music. You just can't escape your roots, and not that I'd want to. Any of these three collections keep my very happy as I cruise down the highways.
Now watching: Some of the old Tom Baker-era Doctor Who. I love Netflix streaming.
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